System and method for a planner

ABSTRACT

A planning system and method is disclosed. The planning system includes at least one business rule remote from at least one client, a meeting editor, and at least one tracker communicately connected to the meeting editor, wherein the at least one tracker tracks at least two data items selected from the group consisting of invitees to at least one of the at least one meetings, respondents to invitations to the meeting, at least one speaker of the meeting, at least one host of the meeting, finances of the meeting, and a venue of the meeting, and wherein the at least one tracker communicates the at least two data items with the meeting editor.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. Patent Application Ser. No.60/408,066 filed on Sep. 4, 2002, entitled “System and Method For APlanner,” the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein, as ifset forth in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a planner, and, more specifically, to a systemand method for generating and planning events, meetings, or relatedseries of meetings.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Today's business environment demands that effective interactions occurbetween business principals and management, peers, subordinates,supporting departments, suppliers, customers, clients, and authorities.Often, these interactions are organized as meetings between individualsor groups at various locations, and under varying circumstances. Theplanning and execution of such meetings, and the associated logistics,can become very disorganized and costly if important parameters aremissed, if records are lost, or if the meeting planning becomes socomplex that many meeting staff members need be employed to realize theevent. Additionally, the organization and accounting of costs associatedwith the organizing of the event, the event location rental, the paymentof speakers, the cost of services, such as food, lodging, administrativecost, mailings, to mention a few, are often overlooked, not wellcontrolled, or badly managed and/or recorded. One criticism that meetingplanners and attendees often express concerns the distribution of basicupdated information concerning a meeting. For example, as meetingplanning becomes more mature, problems may arise with venue, theavailability of speakers or attendees, or services, such that the place,time, and content of a meeting may change. Dissemination of this basicknowledge to all who are interested in a meeting is key to maintainingcoherency in planning and harmony among planners, customers andattendees alike. Channels of communication between planners in differentcompanies and divisions in different cities is an additional problemthat must be overcome.

Thus, there is a need for an invention that provides an integratedsolution for event planning, organization, execution, and costaccounting. The present invention attempts to address these concerns byproviding an integrated, remote, software application that can assistevent planners in conceptualizing, organizing, realizing, and monitoringevent planning and execution, and data gathering.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention includes an planner apparatus. The plannerapparatus includes a project management module, wherein at least oneinformation item associated with the event is generated, an eventlogistics module, wherein at least recruiting of individuals forattendance at the event, selection of venue and speakers for the event,and travel logistics for the event, in accordance with the at least oneinformation item, are monitored, at least one database, wherein the atleast one information item, and wherein at least one of the recruiting,venue, speakers, and travel logistics are stored, a fulfillment requestmodule, wherein fulfillment of tasks associated with the at least onedatabase is performed, and a reporting module, wherein data associatedwith the event, in accordance with the at least one information item andat least one of the recruiting, venue, speakers, and travel logistics,is provided to a user.

The present invention additionally includes a planning system. Theplanning system includes at least one business rule remote from at leastone client, a meeting editor, wherein at least one meeting may begenerated for the at least one client by the meeting editor inaccordance with at least one of the at least one business rule, and atleast one tracker communicatively connected to the meeting editor,wherein the at least one tracker tracks at least two data items selectedfrom the group consisting of invitees to at least one of the at leastone meetings, respondents to invitations to the meeting, at least onespeaker of the meeting, at least one host of the meeting, finances ofthe meeting, and a venue of the meeting, and wherein the at least onetracker communicates the at least two data items with the meetingeditor.

The meeting editor may include a meeting set-up module for setting upeach meeting, a meeting manager for managing each set-up meeting, afulfillment request form manager, a reporter, an attendance listingmanager, an invitee listing manager, a speaker listing manager, tasklisting manager, or a security listing manager, and a selector forselecting at least one of the invitees to at least one of the at leastone meetings, the respondents to invitations to the meeting, the atleast one speaker of the meeting, the at least one host of the meeting,the finances of the meeting, and the venue of the meeting for trackingby the tracker.

The at least one tracker may include at least one database for eachmeeting. The at least one database may include at least one dataattribute selected from the group consisting of a meeting code for themeeting, and at least one of a meeting date, a meeting time, a meetingtype, a meeting status, a meeting number, a client meeting number, ordata attributes of the at least one speaker and the venue, wherein atleast one of the at least one speaker and the venue are relationallylinked to at least one of the meeting code and the meeting date. Theplanning may additionally include a finance tracker.

The present invention may additionally include a method for planning ameeting utilizing an application remote from a planner of the meeting.The method may include the receiving of a logging onto the application,receiving a meeting identifier, receiving a selection of at least onevenue for the meeting, receiving an identification of participants forthe meeting, sending the participants invitations to the meeting,assembling statistics on replies to the invitations, sending remindernotices to the participants upon the assembling of statistics, trackingexpenses for the meeting, and generating reports concerning the meeting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Understanding of the present invention will be facilitated byconsideration of the following detailed description of a preferredembodiment of the present invention taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, in which like numerals refer to like parts and inwhich:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 4 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 5 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 6 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 7 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 8 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 9 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 10 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 11 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 12 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 13 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 14 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 15 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 16 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 17 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 18 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 19 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 20 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 21 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 22 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 23 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 24 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention; and

FIG. 25 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention.

FIG. 26 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 27 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 28 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 29 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 30 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 31 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 32 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 33 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 34 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention; and

FIG. 35 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention.

FIG. 36 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 37 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 38 is an embodiment of a display of the current invention;

FIG. 39 is a block diagram of a portion of the current invention;

FIG. 40 is a block diagram of the present invention;

FIG. 41 is a block diagram of the present invention; and

FIG. 42 is a block diagram of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the presentinvention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevantfor a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating,for purposes of clarity, many other elements found in a typical systemand method. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that otherelements are desirable and/or required in order to implement the presentinvention. However, because such elements are well known in the art, andbecause they do not facilitate a better understanding of the presentinvention, a discussion of such elements is not provided herein. Thedisclosure hereinbelow is directed to all such variations andmodifications to planning technologies known, and as will be apparent,to those skilled in the art.

The present invention may include a plurality of tools, which may beorganized, for example, in accordance with business rules, and which mayinclude a planner, an organizer, an advocate and polling builder, anattendance tracker, a progress tracker, and/or a financial tracker, andwhich may include at least one of these tools within a communicationtool for events and projects, such as corporate meetings, presentations,discussion groups, product development meetings, or any assemblage ofpeople at a place for a common purpose. The present invention may allowdesignated users to plan and organize an event or project, such as ameeting, on-line over a network, such as the internet, such as bycommunicating with a remote planning system and/or advocate builder. Thepresent invention may utilize the communication provided by the network,in conjunction with an organized hierarchy of at least one database, inorder to allow the organizers of an event to centralize activitiesnecessary to execute a successful meeting or project, for example, intoa paperless planning system, thereby improving output and operationalefficiency of personnel, such as planning staff, and thereby reducingplanning time and costs.

The present invention may enable users to access at least one databaseto generate, for example, multiple events for different products orprojects within an enterprise, such as a client, to invite guests andspeakers to at least one of the events, to establish a venue and thesupport services required at the venue, to track the cost and status ofan event, and to permit message-level communication between pre-selectedparties having system access. The present invention may be utilized bymultiple organizations, wherein each organization may have multipleproducts or other motivations for multiple events. The users of thesystem may include, for example, system administrators, meetingplanners, meeting attendees, speakers, service suppliers, or otherindividuals or entities that can contribute to the successful planningand execution of an event.

A planning system in accordance with the present invention is shown inFIG. 1. The planning system may be utilized, for example, for multiplemeetings; multiple projects having multiple meetings therefor, and formultiple organizations. Users may plan, track, and/or organizeinformation related to at least one meeting for at least one client.Clients may interact with the planning system to request planningservices and acquire information related to a meeting or series ofmeetings, for example. Clients may additionally execute and track ameeting using the planning system. The planning system may includeproject set-up and/or management 102, meeting planning and/or eventlogistics 104, and at least one database, such as a person and/or placedatabase 106, for example. The planning system may also include afulfillment request form management function 108 and a reportingfunction 110, for example. The planning system may be, or may include,for example, a Microsoft Windows distributed Internet applicationsarchitecture, as discussed further hereinbelow.

The project set-up and/or management 102 may include representative listmanagement, speaker list management, task list management and securityand access control functions 102 a-d. The meeting, planning and/or eventlogistics 104 may include recruiting and attendance venue selection,speaker selection, representative selection and event and travellogistics 104 a-e. The database may include an address book, schedules,profiles and note logs 106 a-d. These functions may be supported byfulfillment request, letter and/or format management 108, or reporting110.

The planning system of FIG. 1 may include this multiplicity ofintegrated components and at least one logical and/or relationaldatabase. A project in the planning system may necessitate or includeone or more of the function or modules of FIG. 1, depending on therequirements of the client. A project is a logical group of at least onelogically related meeting. The project set-up module allows a projectadministrator to customize a project set-up. A project may trackmeetings, for example, such as meetings related to a given product ofthe client. A project may also include speakers, venues, clientrepresentatives, or recruitment and attendance data, of the at least onemeeting, for example. Thus, for each component of the project, there maybe a set of data attributes that may be tracked. Some of the dataattributes for each component may be required, and others may be used atthe administrator's discretion.

The planning system may utilize, for example, dynamic link libraries(DLL) that link the project definition data, such as the projectadministrator's choice of component and fields, and HTML, xml, or ASPXtemplates, for example. These DLLs may process the HTML templates beforepresentation to a user of the interface, replacing tags and informationin the HTML template with the defining attributes captured. Thereby, theproject administrator may have control of the layout and presentation ofthe data, and the planning system may thus ensure that capturevalidation and storage of data is consistent across all projects.

The meeting planner and/or event logistics 104 may include venueselection, speaker selection, representative assignment of a meeting,audio/visual (A/V) supplier selection, and recruiting and attendance,for example. Fields tracked at the meeting level, and entered to, oraccessed from, the person/place database, may include meeting date andtime, program type, program status, meeting number and client meetingnumber, for example. Further, one or more speakers may be linked to ameeting. One or more venues may be linked to each meeting, and eachvenue may be considered a temporary selection until confirmed. Dataattributes may thus include person/place attributes, as well as aconfirmation flag.

Attendees, recruits, or “targets”, may additionally be associated with ameeting. A target tracker may provide an interface to maintain a list ofrecruits, may import target information provided by a client, may trackstatus and contact history of the targets, may record and track contractinformation with a target, may record attendance data, and may bewithin, or associated with, the logistics 104. For each person in thetarget list, a flag may indicate if the person was invited, and in whatcapacity, such as attendee, speaker, moderator, representative, client,guest, or the like, whether the invitee has responded, the type ofattendee, the number of guests, and/or the type of recruiting that wasused to generate the list. Examples of the type of recruiting mayinclude fax, telephone, representative invitation, guest invitation, andthe like.

The reporting may report real time status of sponsored activities in,for example, a tabular format including event schedules, venueinformation, speaker information, attendance rosters, program trackingand status, and financial information. Reporting may be a real time,internet-based format for secure access from any computer having accessto the network, such as the internet or an intranet, on which theplanning system is resident. Users may, for example, export and downloada report in Microsoft Excel format to a local machine from the reportingmodule. Pre-defined reports may be available for any selected period.Pre-defined reports may include, for example, multi-day reports, such asa two day report, a seven day report, or a weekly roster report. Otherpre-defined reports may include, for example, an invitation report, asummary status report, a results report, an attendance roster, and/or acumulative attendance report.

A two day report, for example, provides status information, and showsevents that will occur two days from the current business date, and mayinclude, for example, the session or meeting code, the date and/or thetime of the meeting, the location of the meeting, the host or moderator,current reservations and/or actual attendance, such as for a selectedperiod of two days. A seven day report may thus include the same statusinformation, but for a seven day period from the present date. A weeklyroster report may also include the same information but over a week'speriod, and for a full roster of meetings on a single project.

For example, a user may run a “2-Day Report” everyday in order to listall of the meetings occurring within the next two days. For all meetingslisted, the user may print out a Venue Confirmation/Guarantee fax andSpeaker Presentation Reminder, if applicable. An audio/visual companymay be reminded based on this report, if needed, and final headcount maybe listed on this report, for example. Confirmation faxes sent to all ofthe attendees, speakers, and support personnel may thus be manually orautomatically sent in accordance with the report, and may ensure thatall meeting parties are appraised of critical meeting parameters.

A user may run a Weekly Roster Report on a specific day, such as, forexample, on each Friday. This report may show which programs may beoccurring over the next 30 days. The user may generate a weekly rosterreport by going to the “Reports” section on a toolbar, for example, bychoosing a “weekly roster report”, and by entering a date.

An invitation report may include, for example, the session or meetingcode, the meeting time and date and location, the host name, the dateinvitations were mailed, the number of invitations mailed, the number ofacceptances and/or the roster returned. A status summary report mayinclude, among other things, the session code, the date, time andlocation of the meeting, the host, the moderator, current reservations,actual data of attendance and the current status of all of the fields. Aresults report may include the rosters returned, the number ofinvitations mailed, the total RSVPs, the total attendance, the averageattendance, as well as the session code, the date of the meeting, andthe invitations returned. A hyperlink within a report may include, orprovide a link to, an attendance roster which might also include thesession code, the date and time of the meeting, the location, the host,contact information for the host, contact information for the moderatoras well as the speaker, the participants and the addresses thereof, aswell as actual attendance at the meeting. The cumulative attendancereport may report over a variety of events, and may include a brand nameor project name, an event ID, meeting code, date and time, names of thehost and moderator and the speaker, names of the attendees and theattendees' addresses, specialties of the attendees, as well as otherinformation relevant to a cumulative report.

The fulfillment request/letter and/or form management function 108 mayinclude a form letter management module. This module may enable a userto combine ad-hoc queries with custom Microsoft Word document templatesto produce form letters, for example. Once an ad-hoc query is designedand saved in the reporting module, it may be used as a data source for aform letter. The planning system may generate a text tag for each fieldin the data source to be placed in the form letter. Users may then layout the word document and place the field tags in the correct locations.Once the template is defined, the data source may be applied to the Wordtemplate. The end results may be the presentation of the form letters tothe user in Word, preferably wherein the user may make modifications tothe letters before the letters are printed. Once the ad-hoc query and atemplate has been defined, the two may be saved together as a formletter package, for example.

The planning system also may include a finance module. This module mayinclude tracked and/or estimated expenses. This module may trackexpenses at, for example, a meeting level. For each expense record, thetype of expense, the status of the expense, i.e. whether it is anestimate, whether it has been paid, whether it is pending review, etc.,the estimated amount of the expense, the actual amount of the expense,any comments regarding the expense, and/or relevant check numbers andcheck dates, may be tracked.

Security access control 102 d may authenticate a user. Users of thesystem may log into the system via an Internet portal and access thesystem through the protections of a user name and password, for example.In addition, the security module may provide access control once theuser has been authenticated. Multiple levels of access control may bedefined. For example, one level may be for system controllers andanother may be for a client user. System controllers may have fullaccess to the application to add, delete and update the data, and clientusers may have limited access.

An auditing function may additionally be provided. The planning systemmay track creations, reads, updates, additions, edits and deletions fromthe databases, in order to provide a history of changes for auditing.The audit log may grow very large, and thus may require periodicpurging. The audit log may track systems usage and help to resolveissues regarding data quality. Each audit record may be corresponded toa field in the person or place database or in the data captured, and mayinclude a user ID and the date and time of any modification made, alongwith the new value for the field.

FIG. 2 represents an exemplary database, which may be, or be within, forexample, a person and/or place table. The person and place table mayprovide a common store for any representative, speaker, moderator,attendee, audio/visual equipment or provider, and/or venue data.Providing references to people and places in a single table may providea consistent, normalized view of the data, and may provide a commonaccess point for critical stores of information. Each person and/orplace may be stored in the person and place table/database, therebyproviding a common value for all sub-systems. This common-valuing mayallow analysis of speaker and attendance data across clients, brandsand/or projects.

The person and place database may include the contact information, i.e.the addresses and phone numbers, of all people in and involved in aproject or projects. The person and place database may abstract thiscontact information to provide a consistent interface for accessing theinformation. For example, an address for a speaker, and an address for avenue, may be stored in the predetermined table having a given structurefor the particular project or meeting. This predetermined table, orgiven structure, may vary by client, or by project, or by meeting, forexample. Each address for a person or place may be labeled with a type,such as business, home, shipping, etc. For each address, the person andplace database may store street, city, name, zip code and comment data.One address for each person or place may be flagged as a correspondenceor mailing or shipping address, such as for any automated form lettersthat may be produced as discussed hereinabove. Thus, the form lettermodule and the databases(s) may preferably be communicatively linked forautomatic address generation for form letters, for example. Phonenumbers may also be labeled by type, i.e. business, home, mobile etc.,such as for automated phone dialing upon linkage to a phone system. Eachphone record may contain a phone number, extension, comments, and atype, for example. The person and place note facility may provide aninterface to enter free form text notes, that will be date and timestamped and linked to a person or a place. These notes may then befreely available, or available in accordance with a given securityclearance, elsewhere in the planning system. These notes may be, or beused by, non-structured data that does not have a pre-specified field inthe person and place database, or may be structured data for relationalstorage in a database, for example.

In operation, a user may log-in, and that log-in may alert the planningsystem as to the functions, projects, or meetings, to which that usermay be granted access, and, if access is granted, to what level accessmay be exerted. Once connected and authenticated, the planning systemmay offer the user a menu of available choices. FIG. 3 is an embodimentof the menu options. An application may be selected 302 using a selector303, such as a drop-down menu, for example. If a meeting planner isselected 302 as the application, the user may enter a client name 304, abrand name 306, and/or a project name 308. Once these parameters areentered, a continue button 310 may be depressed and a new screen asshown in FIG. 4 may appear.

FIG. 4 is an embodiment of a screen after login. The screen may be usedto navigate via navigation buttons on the top of the displayed window402, such as a tool bar. If a new meeting is to be added, the AddMeeting button 404 may be depressed, for example.

Requests for the addition of meetings may occur through the network orweb-based system, and may be completed by a system user, or an accountsupervisor, for example. The user or account supervisor may be asked toenter a meeting code 406. Meeting codes may be determined by the accountsupervisor, and may contain a client's sales territory or districtnumber, or may be automatically generated by the planning system upongeneration of a meeting, for example. Meeting codes may be entered bytyping directly into the meeting code box 406, or by a drop downselection from the code box 406, for example. Pull-down 408 may allowthe user to select a status for the meeting. If the user does not assigna status, the status may self assign, such as “No Request”. A meetingmay be considered “Set-Up In Progress”, for example, until all, meetingdetails have been completed. Once the program is confirmed and alldetails have been arranged, the program may have status “Set-upComplete”.

In order to complete meeting setup, a plurality of meeting information,such as meeting date and meeting time, may be entered. For example, toset up a meeting date, a calendar icon 410 may be used. The user mayclick on the calendar and then click on the date that has been selected.A meeting time may be assigned 412, such as along with a correspondingpull-down to select A.M. or P.M. After entering the above information,the user may save the screen using button 414, thereby allowing the userto move to the next screen, whereat the user may continue enteringinformation about the meeting.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary embodiment of editing of meeting parameters. Atany time after a meeting is entered, an authorized user may edit theinformation that was previously entered by entering the “edit meeting”mode via the toolbar button 502, for example. In addition, the user mayuse edit meeting to add any information that was previously unavailable.The user may be encouraged to save any changes that were made. Certainof, or all, fields depicted in FIG. 4 may be edited, or selectable viadrop down windows, for example.

Exemplary data fields to be entered in FIG. 5 may include the Date 7-DayPacket Sent 550 field, and/or the 7-Day Packet Tracking Number field552, wherein a corresponding FedEx tracking number may be entered. Alsoselected, such as by using the calendar icon, may be the Date InvitationMailed 554 and the Date Attendance Roster Returned 556 fields, forexample. In certain exemplary embodiments, the user may type freely inthe corresponding space for meeting notes 556, and via notes, or via adedicated meeting email server listing, for example, the user maythereby communicate with other individuals interested in the meeting.For example, a message left in the meeting notes area may be read byother individuals with access to the meeting planner. A Feedback ReportReturned status 560 may be automatically assigned as “no”, unless anentrant uses the pull-down and selects “yes”, for example. A SpeakerStatus 610 may be entered via a pull-down throughout the meetingplanning process to assign a speaker status. If the meeting date has notbeen confirmed with the speaker, the speaker may be “pending”. If thedate has been confirmed, the speaker status may be “confirmed”. SpeakerTravel 612 may be recorded via, for example, a pull-down to assignpersonnel to handle the speaker's travel arrangements. A speaker may beconfirmed 614 by using a pull-down for the appropriate method ofconfirmation, such as a phone conversation, fax, e-mail, etc. A datethat the speaker was confirmed 616 may be entered via the calendar icon,for example. Speaker Notes may be typed freely in the correspondingspace for speaker notes 618, for example.

A contract status field may be automatically populated, such as with“Initial Request”. When the user changes the status to “Contracted”, thescreen may change to show more venue details. A venue may be consideredcontracted when a received and/or signed meeting confirmation from thevenue is obtained, and a date contract returned field may be populatedon the date of receipt of a received and/or signed contract from thevenue.

Returning now to FIG. 5, the Meeting Type 504 may be selected from thepull-down options and may identify the business type of the meeting. Themeeting format 506 may be selected from the pull-down options and mayindicate the format of the meeting, such as a dinner, breakfast, orlunch meal type, a conference, seminar, or other meeting type. Meetingtopic 508 may be selected from the pull-down options and may be relatedto one of the products, or areas of research, or any other activity thata business entity may engage. Note that a meeting type, format and topicselections may be pre-defined by an account supervisor at the start of aproject.

A Date Request Received 510 may be entered, such as using the calendaricon, to record the date that the meeting request was received, such asin order to assist the user in determining the amount of time it hastaken to complete the meeting set-up. A host may be added in the add newhost field 512. To add a host, the user may click on the Add New icon,and/or may search an underlying host database to find a host, or may adda host to the database so as to allow for selection of that host fromthe database. Of additional note, a user may perform a realistic search,which may automatically reject nonsensical searches, and which mayinclude wildcards, for any field in use in the present invention. If noresults are found for the search, the user may add, and then select, thedesired search person, place, or entity. Thereby, the present inventionprovides a universal, one touch (or click), search function, followed bya one-touch change, add, or select function. If a name is alreadyentered and the user wants to change it, the user may first delete theentered name by clicking on the X next to the appropriate field, forexample. The Host Voicemail 514 may automatically populate the host'svoicemail extension when that information is added into the hostprofile, for example. The target list included 522 may utilize thepull-down to select “yes” if the meeting host has included a target listwith his/her meeting request. If this information is not updated, thesystem may automatically assign as “no”.

The Adding Additional Point Person, which is, in one embodiment, acoworker of the client named as the “point person”, may serve as anadditional point of contact. The additional point person may serve as adefault cc: to assist the point person. The Additional Point person maybe added to the meeting in the same fashion as set forth hereinabove.The contact 518 may be an employee or contractor of the host,responsible for confirming the meeting logistics. Contacts may be addedto the meeting in the same fashion as the host. Of note, all persons maybe added to a meeting using the single touch search, and the singletouch add, select, or change, as discussed hereinabove. A moderator 520may be, for example, a speaker that is employed by the customer. Withinthe moderator field box, the user may have the option to select ordelete the current moderator. The moderator may be added to the meetingin the same fashion as the host. The territory number 524 may utilize apull-down to select the appropriate number, which may have beenpreloaded by a system administrator. The contract location descriptionfield 526 may utilize the pull-down to select the appropriatedescription.

As discussed hereinabove, FIG. 6 is an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention. The speaker field 602 may contain the name of thespeaker for a program. The speaker may be, for example, a visitingfaculty member, or other client employee or contractor, that has beentrained by a client to speak on behalf of the client. The speaker may beadded to the meeting in a similar manner as the host. The business unitfield 604 may utilize a pull-down menu selection. The geography field606 may utilize a pull-down to assign the correct location of thebusiness unit involved. The venue field, such as that at which thespeaker will speak, may be the location in which a meeting will takeplace, such as a restaurant, hospital, hotel, etc. Once a reservationhas been made, the venue may be marked “reserved” in the system.

A target list may be included with a meeting request, and each targetmay be entered in the “Participant” section of the meeting planner. Forexample, if the meeting was a conference of medical specialists, atarget list may be a list of medical personnel that a meeting host mightlike invited to the program. To enter a target list, the user may selecta meeting to affiliate with the target list. At the top of the meetingscreen, the user may go to the participant section. To add a NewParticipant the user may click on an “Add New Participant” buttonlocated, for example, in the top right hand corner. An icon may be usedto indicate the function, such as, for example, a red plus symbol.Depressing the icon may open a search screen, and the user may searchfor a target in the same fashion that a search for a host or speaker isperformed. If the search is successful, the name and address may beadded to the invitation list by depressing an “Add Participant” button.If the user's search is unsuccessful, the user may depress the “Add New”button and create a new profile for that target.

As a user is entering the target list, the system may prompt the userwhen a pre-determined participant limit is reached. In the case ofentering a target list, a user may override the limit and continueentering names. Thus, a particular meeting may have a select number ofparticipants (“Yes” responses) allowed to attend a program, and thislimit may be shown at the top of the Participant Screen. There may alsobe notes in the Participant Notes section indicating a deviation fromthe limit listed at the top of the screen. Notes about participantlimits may override a pre-determined participant limit. Participants mayalso be deleted. To remove a Participant, a user may click on a deleteicon, such as, for example, an “X”, and may thereby request the deletionfunction. The user may then be queried concerning the desire to actuallydelete.

A target list may, for example, be imported into a meeting. To import alist from an existing planner target group, such as a target list for agiven district, territory, group name, or group attribute, the user maygo to the meeting's participant screen. The user may then click theterritory import, contract location import, or import group to beginimport. The system may ask the user to confirm that the user wants tocomplete this import for this meeting to insure that the user has thedesired meeting and group selected. If correct, the user may select“Submit”. The planning system may then import all names affiliated withthat territory/contract/group. For example, attendee lists may bedownloaded in a comma separated value (csv) format. A downloadedattendee address list in a csv format file may then be found, forexample, in the fulfillment module, as discussed further hereinbelow,such as in csv lists 706, 708. The file may be additionally bedownloaded into an Excel csv file by choosing a file name from a menuthat appears as “Save Target As”.

If a meeting host wants to only invite specific people from the listpreviously imported, the user may choose the “mass select” function, forexample. Mass Select may default to all names being a “do not invite”.The user may then select those targets that the host does want toinvite. Once the user selects and saves the names desired, and the namesleft as “no” may be removed from the list, thereby leaving only thosenames that selected as yes.

The present invention may allow for the inviting of guests to a meetingby assembling and entering responses to invitations (RSVPs). Invitationsmay provide the invitee with a fax back, or email back, request, (“faxback” response) for example. Once the invitee responds, the fax back oremail back is considered a response or RSVP. Invitees may note on a faxwhether or not they will be attending a program, and may provide someprofile information with the RSVP, such as an address, phone, fax,Social Security number, or TaxID, for example.

If a fax back response is positive, the user may ensure that theinformation on the fax back form is reflected in the invitee's profile,i.e. medical suffix, address, phone, fax, SS# or TaxID. The user maythen save the response by clicking on the “Edit” icon near theparticipant's name. The user may use a drop down box under attendancestatus to choose “Yes” to indicate the fax back RSVP was positive. If aguest count was requested on the fax back form, the user may enter thenumber indicated in the guest count field and send a fax or emailconfirmation, for example. A confirmation fax may be sent by the user byfirst selecting to send an e-fax, editing a reply, and delivering thee-fax via electronic mail, for example. Once the e-fax is successful,the user may initial and date the RSVP and file it in an appropriatefolder, for example. Optionally, the user may send a mail confirmation,which may be performed by printing the edited fax message, and printingthe letter on letterhead for hand mailing.

If the fax back RSVP is negative, the user may ensure that theinformation on the fax back form is reflected in the invitee's profile,i.e., medical suffix, address, phone, fax, SS# or TaxID. The user maysave the response by clicking on the “Edit” icon near the participant'sname to provide editable fields. The user may then utilize the drop downbox under attendance status and choose “No” to indicate a negativeresponse. The user may then file the negative RSVP in an appropriatefolder.

The user may be able to add, edit or search a profile to add to a list.When a user clicks on “Add New” button in meeting list, for example, asearch box may appear. A user may use a wild card search when the useris uncertain of an exact spelling of an attendees or speaker's name, forexample. The asterisk may represent the wild card and can be used as aprefix, suffix or both. For example, using the wild card as a suffix forJon*, will result in a search for any combination of letters using “Jon”as the first 3 letters of the field searched. Jon, Jonah or Jonathanwould all be possible outcomes for this wild card search. If the userknows the city or state for the person/place entry, the user may enterthat information as well. Providing additional information may helpreduce excess results to thereby produce a more efficient search.

If a search is successful, a listing may appear as a set of matches to asearch. To make a selection, the corresponding “Edit and Add to Meeting”tab may be selected. A profile of the individual may appear uponselection to allow the user to verify that that the individual and allof the relevant information is accurate. At any point in the process theuser may use the “back” button at the top of the page to bring the userback to the search screen to, for example, create another searchselection.

If the record that the user is seeking does not appear in the searchresults, a user may utilize the “Add New” button. When the user selectsadd new, a blank profile screen may appear. The user may enter allappropriate information, such as name, address, phone, fax, and thelike, and may save. The user may then select the “add to meeting” buttonby using the icon at the top of the profile screen, for example.

The present invention may be utilized to print invitations to a meetingattendee. Generally, printed invitations may be sent, for example, about4 weeks before a program date. The invitations may be generated from the“Fulfillment” module in the planning system. FIG. 7 embraces oneembodiment of the invention showing a the fulfillment tool bar button702. A user may print and send such an invitation by choosing themeeting desired, such as by selecting the correct meeting code from thedrop down list provided in the fulfillment section. For example, acustom invitation may be sent by selecting the appropriate drop downmenu selection 704. Invitations may then be printed on designatedletterhead.

Reminder, or other, faxes may be sent through the use of the presentinvention, in accordance with a manual trigger, or an automatic trigger.An automatic trigger may be, for example, time triggered or eventtriggered. A time trigger may be automatically generated on a certaindate, or at a certain time. An event trigger may be an event, such as achange in meeting time, completion of a setup, etc. These triggers maybe automatically entered to the system, and the system then tracks untilthe event occurs, and, upon occurrence of the event, the faxes(including emails or telephone calls) are automatically generated.Events, or time, triggers may trigger faxes only to persons having acertain status for a given meeting in the database. For example, theevent “setup complete” may trigger an event fax to the meeting host.Alternatively, for example, on a specific day, such as, for example, aMonday, an account coordinator, or an automated message generatoroperating on a triggered basis, may send reminders, cancellations,postponements, attendance rosters, confirmations, invitations, or otherdocument templates that are populated by merging information from adatabase for manual or automated distribution, by fax, email, automatedtelephone call, or the like, to participants, speakers, host, additionalpoint persons, speakers, audio/visual suppliers, or the meetingattendees, for example, such as for the meetings coming up that week. Ifa meeting is occurring over the weekend or on a Monday or Tuesday, thepresent invention may send the reminder faxes or emails Thursday orFriday, for example. In addition, reminder faxes can be e-faxed from thecomputer in the same fashion as confirmation faxes, for example. Anautomatically generated fax, email, or the like, may be autofilled fromthe information in the database, such as by an automated merge, such asby autofilling the fax number, name, position, and/or status (host,attendee, etc.) in accordance with a given event or time.

After a meeting has occurred, the user may wish to record return rostersto thereby provide a listing of each person who actually attended themeeting. Upon receipt of a return roster, the user may click “Edit” inthe invitee's record in the Participant Screen and click “Yes” in theactual attended section of the record, for example. The user may savethat information and enter the roster return date on the meetinginformation screen.

Expenses for a meeting may additionally be tracked through the use ofthe present invention. The user may perform this function by opening theproject, clicking on the financial button, choosing “Expense Register”,clicking “Add New Expense”, selecting the meeting code, and selectingthe charge type (i.e., venue, outside AV . . . ) or by entering theExpense Type (Visa), or the expense category (F&B, Room Deposit . . . ),or by entering the charge amount, such as including a decimal (100.00),and/or by entering any notes pertinent to the charge. The user may savethis information for permanent record keeping.

FIG. 8 is an embodiment of a screen after login. The tool may be chosenat 802. A client may be chosen in 804. An existing brand or productwhich is the subject matter of the meeting may be chosen in 806. Anexisting or new project for the meeting may be chosen in 808. In theexample of FIG. 8, a meeting planner was chosen, the client is Pfizer,the brand name is Glucotrol®, a product of Pfizer®, and the project is adinner meeting entitled 2001 Dialog Dinner Meeting.

FIG. 9 is an embodiment resulting from depressing the edit meetingbutton 902. FIG. 9 is a list of all meetings for the Glucotrol® 2001Dialog Dinner Meetings. Various meeting codes 904 are displayed for themeetings displayed on the FIG. 9 meeting list. Each meeting may have anindividual code which specifically identifies it. The date and scheduledtime for the meeting 906 is also listed for each meeting code. Thestatus of the meeting may also be shown 908 as being either completed,canceled or in set-up, for example. The host of the meeting 910 islisted as an individual who is sponsoring the meeting. The moderator 914is also listed for each meeting. A first, second and third speaker 916may also be listed for each meeting. The meeting location 918 isprovided as a city or state, and venue 920 provides the specificbusiness location for the meeting. The column 922 audiovisual allows thecompany providing audiovisual services to be listed. The overall listingof FIG. 9 may provide a user with a single page snapshot of all themeetings for a given product. Each individual meeting code 904 showingFIG. 9 may represent a hyperlink to additional information for thatmeeting. For example, the hyperlink for meeting code GLX-F3F-3, 924 maybring the user to a display as shown in FIG. 10.

FIG. 10 a is an embodiment showing details of the meeting designated bythe meeting code of GLX-F3F-3. The meeting code is shown 1002 in FIG. 10a, as is the meeting status 1004 and the meeting type 1006. The meetingdate is provided in a field 1008, and additional information indicatingthe format of the meeting 1010 is provided. In the example provided inFIG. 10 a, the meeting topic is indicated as a meeting discussing type 2diabetes in 1012, and the meeting time is indicated as 7:00 p.m. on1014. The date the request for the meeting was received is alsoindicated in the display 1016, as is the host of the meeting 1018. Notethat the host name is a hyperlink to a profile of that person. Anorganizer contact is provided in 1022, and additional point persons maybe added, as well as a moderator 1026. Should a target list be included,its presence would be indicated by a flag in the field on the display1028. The date that the seven day packet report was sent, as well as thedate any invitations were mailed, are indicated in fields 1030, 1032respectively. If the seven day package had a tracking number, it wouldbe indicated on the display 1034. If edits to the attendant's rosterwere returned to the host, that would be indicated in field 1036, aswell as any feed back report returned in field 1038. The host can alsotrack the number of gift certificates requested in a field provided onthe display 1040.

The present invention may display meeting notes to those hosting,organizing and attending the meeting 1042, thereby allowing meetingplanners to exchange ideas and information so that the best ideas andresources of all of the meeting planners are utilized. A territorynumber 1044 and a contract location description 1046 may be available asdrop down menus and may be pre-determined by a system administrator.Speaker information may be provided by utilizing the icon button foradding additional information 1048. A speaker's name may appear as ahyperlink 1050 if a speaker is listed. The hyperlink may provide aprofile of the speaker so that additional information may be gained bythose who have access to the system. The status of the speaker, such asconfirmed or unconfirmed, may also be presented 1052, and the method ofconfirmation 1056 as well as the date of confirmation for the speaker1058 may also be provided. To assure that the speaker has adequatetransportation, speaker travel organizer 1054 may also provided so thatspeaker itinerary can be verified and included in the informationoffering to a host, organizer, speaker, or the like. FIG. 10 b continuesthe display shown in FIG. 10 a. The display shown on FIG. 10 b mayinclude speaker notes which can be used to record communication with, orto contact or communicate ideas to, the speaker, such as wherein thespeaker may have access or to other members who are involved in meetingplanning. Speaker notes 1060 may include contact or travel information,speaker topic information, financial information or qualificationsrelating to the speaker. The present invention may include browser-basedreview of notes, or attachments, in a meeting, or for a person relatedto a given meeting, such as attachments related to a speaker, such as acurriculum vitae, or to an audio visual supplier, such as a copy of theavailable equipment. Thereby, browser based attachments may beassociated with any person, entity, or place within a database, and maybe available to all users accessing a meeting involving that person,entity, or place, or to an authorized group of users accessing thatmeeting.

In an embodiment shown in FIG. 10 b, the business unit or geography, aswell as budget categories may be displayed 1062, 1064. Details may bedisplayed on the same, or an associated, page by, for example, using ascroll down control bar. A toolbar 1066 may be used as a place to inserthyperlinks to jump back to the top of the page, to the travel portion,to the participant listing, to the financial summary or to requestchanges. The name of the venue 1068 may also be a hyperlink whichprovides a profile for a venue. The exemplary display of FIG. 10 bprovides a venue address 1070, phone number 1072, fax number 1074 and acontact at the venue 1076. The meeting room may be displayed 1078, asmay be the contract status 1080, such as whether the contract has beensigned for this specific date, and/or the time that the room at thevenue is accessible 1081. The date that the reservation was made 1082and the total capacity of the venue 1084 may also be displayed. Thecapacity of the venue may limit the total number of invitees to themeeting, and a venue may be recorded in a memory as being so limited.The date a venue has been supplied a credit card as a means of paymentfor the event may be provided as an in-date form in the display field1086, for example. The cost per person 1088, the date of the contractfor the venue 1090 and the venue cost 1092 may also be displayed. Thedate the contract was returned after being signed by the venue holder1094, a method of payment 1096, may also be indicated. The audiovisualsupplier for, for example, audiovisual aids, may be provided in 1098.The audiovisual supplier's name may be a hyperlink to a profile for thatsupplier, and may be displayed 1001. The audiovisual contact name 1003and the supplier's city and state 1005 and phone number 1007 and fax1009 may be displayed. Venue notes which indicate any informationrelevant to those who have access to the system may be placed in a textfield provided in display 1011 of FIG. 10 b. Until a venue iscontracted, alternate venues also available may be displayed in FIG. 10c. If the meeting may occur in multiple locations, a second venue 1013or a third venue 1015 may be provided in details with respect to thosevenues. Travel information may be added or edited, and entry of such maybe accomplished via pushbutton 1017, for example.

Returning to FIG. 9, if the profile edit button 924 is depressed, thedisplay of FIG. 11 may be provided. FIG. 11 is an embodiment of aprofile search that allows a profile edit after a search of a person1104, venue 1103, or AV supplier 1102. A search may prioritize searchresults in accordance with an affiliation to people or entities. If theuser selects radio button 1104 to search for a person, the display ofFIG. 12 may be presented to the user. In the embodiment shown in FIG.12, the search for a person may be completed by typing in the last nameof the individual 1202. It is noted that different versions of the sameperson may exist with respect to different clients within the database.Additional information may include first name 1204, city 1206, state1208 and zip code 1210. Additional search options for locating a personduring a search may include client project 1212, a person type, eitherspeaker, moderator, target, host, or any of the above 1214. The searchmay be initiated by depressing search button 1216, and a new search withclear fields may be acquired by depressing the clear all button 1218,for example. Also indicated in FIG. 12 are search results from a personsearch indicating name, the person-type, the city, state, and zip code,in a search results line 1220. Should any of the information beincorrect or subject to change or updating, the profile may be edited bydepressing the hyperlink 1222, for example. If a new person record needsto be added to the database, the add new button 1224 may be used to adda new person to the profile database.

It is an aspect of the current invention that meeting data may beorganized for effective use without viewing multiple screens. Thestructured reports provided by the current invention provide significantutility to the meeting planning process by informing meeting planners ofvarious and multiple aspects of the current project. These combinedaspects of the planning activity may be assembled into standardizedreports.

Reports may be accessed using the toolbar shown in FIG. 13. The reportspush button 1302 may display the report menu 1304 for the selectedproject. Selected reports may include multi-day reports, such as, forexample, a two day report, five day report, seven day report, weeklyroster report, invitation report, status summary report, AS report,result report, cumulative attendance report, cumulative target report,speaker report, speaker request and/or a financial report. The reporttypes may be hyperlinks, and selecting any of the hyperlinks may bringup the report page. For example, selecting the two day report 1304 a maybring up the page display in FIG. 14.

FIG. 14 is an exemplary menu to access a two day report. The user mayenter a report starting date 1402 and depress the continue button 1404.Alternately, the user may depress the calendar icon 1406 to bring up acalendar display, as shown in FIG. 15. The calendar display of FIG. 15may allow the user to select a date to initiate a two day report. Forexample, if the user selects February 14 within the FIG. 15 calendar,the display of FIG. 16 may be provided.

FIG. 16 displays a screenshot of a dialog dinner meeting two day reportfor a reporting period ending Feb. 14, 2002, and displays the basicinformation concerning a project identified by a session code, date,time, location, and host, and displays the number of current and actualreservations and attendance 1604. FIG. 16 indicates the session code ofthe meeting, which may also be a hyperlink to allow a user to furtherinvestigate this particular meeting. The date and time 1604 b, 1604 cmay be the date and time that the report for the indicated event wasrun.

Returning to FIG. 13, should the hyperlink for a seven day report 1304 cbe selected, the report shown in FIG. 17 may be displayed to the user.The report indicates that two session codes may have available seven dayreports 1704, 1702. Also indicated are the date whereon the seven daypackages were sent to those interested in receiving reports.

Should the summary status report 1304 f be selected, the hyperlink mayprovide the page shown in FIG. 18 to the user. FIG. 18 displays anembodiment of the current invention that may be used to provide asummary status report for a user. The status report may indicate thegeneral status 1802, as well as a count 1804 for all individual meetingsunder a certain product project. As shown in the example of FIG. 18, thelist can be extensive, covering a total of 133 different meetingassociated with business projects. The summary status report mayindicate a session code 1806, date and time of the meeting 1808, thelocation of the project meeting 1810, the host and the host's extension1812, 1814, as well as any additional host 1816. A moderator is shown inthe table 1818, and a first, second and third speaker may be displayed1820. The topic of the meeting may be shown in the field 1822, as wellas the current reservation, total number of current reservation 1824,and the actual attendance of a completed meeting 1826. The overallstatus of the meeting may be provided in 1818.

Returning to FIG. 13, the hyperlink 1304 d, weekly roster report, isselected. A display similar to that of FIG. 19 may be displayed. FIG. 19displays a weekly roster report for all of the session code projectsavailable under a particular product. A roster report may include thecurrent reservations as well as the actual attendance at the variousmeetings associated with the project.

Returning to FIG. 13, the user may invoke an invitation report 1304 e byselecting the associated hyperlink. As a result, a display as shown inFIG. 20 may be presented to the user. FIG. 20 represents an invitationreport. The invitation report may include a project session code foreach meeting 2002, the associated meeting time and date 2004, thelocation name of the meeting 2006, the host name 2008, the date theinvitation was mailed 2010, the number of invitations actually mailed2012, the number of acceptances from that invitation 2014, the actualattendance of the meeting 2016, if the meeting has already transpired,whether or not the roster has been returned and the date of return 2018,and the meeting status, such as either completed, set-up or canceled2020. The invitation report of FIG. 20 allows a comprehensive singlepage view of all of the meetings scheduled within a business productline, and allows the user to inspect the number and status of allinvitations.

Returning to FIG. 13, if the user selects a results report 1304 hhyperlink, the display in FIG. 21 may be provided to the user. FIG. 21is a results report that provides cumulative statistics on a particularprogram or series of meetings. The report is a results report 2102, andstatistics for the multiple events or meetings are provided in thedisplay in 2104. Provided in the body of the results report may be theindividual projects session code 2106, the date of the meeting 2108, ahost or additional point person 2110, the number of invitations mailed2112, the number of RSVPs received 2114, and the actual attendance ofthe meeting 2116.

Returning to FIG. 13, if the user selects the Account Supervisor (“AS”)report hyperlink, 1304 g, a display as shown in FIG. 22 may be displayedto the user. FIG. 22 is an embodiment of an AS report. The AS report mayinclude the meeting code 2202, the meeting time and date 2204, themeeting status 2206, speaker status 2208, the date the request wasreceived 2210, the date the speaker was confirmed 2212, the date thecontract for the speaker was returned 2214, the date the invitations forthe meeting were mailed 2216, the date a seven day report was sent 2218,and the date that the roster was retained 2220.

It is an aspect of the present invention that a financial reportconcerning a particular program or series of meetings may be generatedfor a user. An embodiment of a financial report is provided in FIG. 23.FIG. 23 illustrates a screen shot of a financial report wherein only aportion of all the financial topics is visible 2302. Table 1 listsexemplary titles for financial perimeters associated with the meetingthat may be detected in FIG. 23. The financial report may display theTable 1 parameters for each individual meeting project, for example, andmay total the amount to provide the user an estimate of meeting costsand expenses.

TABLE 1 Financial Report Headings meeting code meeting date businessunit geography meeting type meeting format host miscellaneous attendeehonorarium speaker air fare speaker expenses speaker honorariumentertainment venue room fees outside audiovisual fees F & B fees venuedeposit speaker honorarium speaker airfare speaker car venue depositDistrict business manager expense freelancer fees grant requestmanagement fee hotel car on-site staff fees on-site staff expensessupplies postage and attendee expenses

FIG. 24 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention in which theuser selects the fulfillment menu button 2042 and selects from the dropdown menu 2404 a meeting in which letter or e-mail correspondence needsto be generated. FIG. 25 illustrates fulfillment items for a particularproject. These fulfillment items may include such meeting-specificitems, for example, as a comma separated value file 2502, an attendeeseparated value file 2504, a venue confirmation 2506, a cover memo 2508,a cancellation fax 2510, a cancellation notice 2512, an invitation 2514,a speaker confirmation 2516 and 2518, an invitation 2520, a thank youletter for a local speaker 2522, a national single speaker thank youletter 2524, a reminder fax 2526, and/or an request for receipt 2528.The user may use fulfillment items to simplify and efficiently developcorrespondence necessary to execute plans for the meeting or project, orto communicate with persons affiliated with an event or series ofevents, such as speakers, attendees, venues, A/V suppliers, and/orhosts.

As set forth hereinabove, the present invention may include within, orin conjunction with, a planning system, an advocate builder. An advocatebuilder may, for example, allow for data collection and/or entry by anauthorized client. The advocate builder may be accessed, for example,similarly to the planner as set forth hereinabove, such as by login as aclient, for a particular selected project. Upon access to the advocatebuilder, a user may access a set-up menu, to allow for the advocatebuilder to be set-up. An exemplary set-up menu of the advocate builderis illustrated in FIG. 26, and may include, for example, the importationof data, the building of polling questions, or text from, or related to,or for forwarding to, an external site. The layout of particular datamay vary, and the layout may be entered to the advocate builder forimportation of the particular data, as shown in FIG. 27. Layouts to beimported may be added, edited, deleted, or accessed, for import orstatus check, as illustrated in FIG. 27.

FIG. 28 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the present invention inwhich the user accesses the edit selector in the set-up menu of theadvocate builder. FIG. 28 illustrates the editing of data importationlayout, such as the editing of when data importation occurs, the statusof the occurrence, and the progress of the importation. A user mayreceive an alert on various factors in the importation process, such aspreparing, failure, stalling, stopping, running, or completing of theimportation, as illustrated. Additional information may be provided inthe edit screen, as illustrated in FIG. 29.

FIG. 30 illustrates the selection of a particular importation layout.The description for the layout is illustrated in FIG. 30, as is thetemplate for the layout. This layout may be changed, saved, previewed,or viewed, as raw columns, for example, as illustrated in FIG. 30.

FIG. 31 illustrates an exemplary selection of the raw columns of datafor the importation layout. Additionally, FIG. 31 illustrates that thelayout may be mapped to a user defined template, for example.

FIG. 32 illustrates the selection to build polling questions, such asfrom within the advocate builder set-up. A polling question may beentered by a text entry, as illustrated, and selectable answers, such asmultiple choice answers, may be entered. Further, multiple additionalquestions and/or answers may be entered, for example. The questionentered may be saved and/or added, such as to a list of questions, savedand/or exited from, or not saved, as selectable by the user.Alternatively, polling questions may be imported from otherapplications, or viewed from within other applications within thepolling question generation window, or copied and pasted from otherapplications, for example.

FIG. 33 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of an external site set-upas selected from the set-up menu. For example, the external site captionmay be entered, as may be text for pages of the external site, such asthe opening or closing page of the external site. Portions of a dataentry page may additionally be entered, such as for combination with,and/or display of, polling questions discussed hereinabove. Further, theexternal site set-up may be programmed to include a thank you fordisplay on the external site, such as to thank a party for answeringpolling questions. Additionally, email addresses, fax numbers, or otherinformation may be entered as a list to which the polling questions areto be sent, for example.

FIG. 34 illustrates an exemplary selection of a data entry menu fromwithin the advocate builder. As illustrated, data may be selectable,such as alphabetically and by different categories.

FIG. 35 illustrates a market report in accordance with the advocatebuilder. The market report may, for example, be broken down by market,and may include information regarding nominees, friends, influencers, orreferrers. A party nominated to answer polling questions may be, forexample, a party initially selected to respond to the polling questions,and that nominee may name, nominate, or have assessed, friends orinfluencers, and may become a referrer by naming a friend or influencer,for example. A nominee report may appear, for example, in the format ofFIG. 36. A friend report may appear, for example, in the format of FIG.37.

FIG. 38 illustrates a report showing polling question results. Thepolling question results report may include individualized, orcumulative, responses to questions in the polling. Such responses may bebroken down by particular categories, such as by particular medicalfields of the respondents, for example. Full text responses may, forexample, be searched for key elements, and may be reported in accordancewith those key elements, for example.

In an exemplary operational embodiment, the planning system may bedivided into clients, wherein each client may log in individually, andwithin each client may be present, for example, one or more brandsrelated to that client, or one or more projects related to that client,or related to a particular brand of that client, for example, asdiscussed hereinabove, and as illustrated in the flow diagram of FIG.39. Thus, upon logging in 2602, a user may be able to, for example, setup a new client or subclient, or select an existing client 2604, whereina particular user may log into multiple clients within the planningsystem. Following selection of a client 2604, a user of the planningsystem may be able to, for example, set up a new brand 2606, or selectan existing brand 2607, or set up a new project 2608, or select anexisting project 2609.

A project may include, for example, at least one meeting which may beselected as all, or a portion, of that particular project. Uponselection of a project 2608, or a meeting, or upon selection to set up anew project or meeting, the user may be presented with an add/editmeeting selector. The user may add or edit a meeting through thisselector 2610, or, in an alternative embodiment, a meeting may beautomatically added or selected in accordance with, for example, areceived e-mail, a received telephone call, or a received fax. Theadd/edit meeting module may allow a user to track and/or modify ameeting in accordance with a meeting status, for example. The add/editmeeting module may allow, for example, a comprehensive review of themeeting, a review of meeting status, a comprehensive venue status, acomprehensive audio visual status and/or a target attendee statusreview, as discussed hereinabove. Each of these portions of the modulemay be selectable, such as using a hyperlink, and, upon selection, mayevidence varying levels of detail within that portion of the module.

For example, each meeting may be keyed by a meeting code, and eachmeeting may have a meeting status. The meeting status may be, forexample, in progress, set up complete, completed, postponed, notrequested, cancelled, or planned but no date supplied, for example. Theadd/edit meeting selection 2610 may additionally evidence the meetingdate, the meeting time, the meeting business unit such as business unitswithin the client, the geographic location of the meeting, andadditional information directed to the desirable attendees for thatmeeting 2612. Selection of the add/edit meeting module may additionallyallow for selection of the host, a point person, a moderator, a contactname or listing, target listings, moderators, speakers, or attendancerosters 2630.

In this exemplary embodiment, upon selection of for example, the venue,the venue name, address, telephone and/or fax number, contact name,and/or venue notes, may be displayed or may be edited. Additionalinformation related to the venue may be viewed, such as the contractstatus with the venue, which may be, for example, unavailable, reserved,contract sent, contracted, or initial request made, for example.Additionally, the meeting room or area of the venue may be selected, asmay be the capacity or cost, such as per person, of the venue. Thereby,aspects of the venue may be reviewed and/or edited by authorized users2620 of the planning system. Additionally, authorized users may, forexample, record payment to the venue, or other owed expenses, such as bycredit card, or printing of a business check. A user may additionallymake venue arrangements for audio visual equipment to be supplied to thevenue, such as the audio visual supplier, an audio visual contact name,supplier name, supplier location, or supplier contact information.Additionally, alternative audio visual suppliers may be entered.

Selection 2610 of the add/edit meeting module may additionally allow forthe selection of particular functions for the speaker and/or moderator.For example, information may be tracked for the speaker and/ormoderator, such as a record of whether a speaker has provided personalinformation, such as a personal biography, curriculum vitae, speakerhonoraria amount, speaker airline preferences or expenses, car, hotel,food, or other travel preferences or expenses. Other expenses related tothe meeting and/or the speaker may be tracked, such as room fees,restaurant charges, audio visual charges, entertainment charges, othermiscellaneous expenses, and each expense tracked by the add/edit meetingmodule may be interoperable with the accounting systems apparent tothose skilled in the art, such as Microsoft Quicken or Microsoft GreatPlains, for example.

Further, the add/edit meeting selection 2610, as set forth hereinabove,may allow for the tracking for particular attendee functions, such asinvited participants, acknowledged participants, payment of acknowledgedparticipants, tracking of accounts receivable, and tracking of accountspaid. Overall, a total attendee or guest count may be provided, such asin order to select numbers of handouts necessary for availability duringa meeting. Particular attendees may be tracked using the add/editmeeting module, such as overall attendance or attendee status, which mayinclude yes, no, wait listed, cancel, or invited, whether or not anattendee actually attended, whether an attendee is, or is to be,removed, and whether particular attendee confirmations are to be madeavailable or have been provided by a confirmation fax, mail, e-mail,invitation, telephone call, or other methodology. All attendanceinformation may be conveniently provided in, for example, a summarytable.

In this exemplary operational embodiment, the planning system mayadditionally include tracking for all persons and places involved with aparticular project, brand, client, or multiple clients, within theplanning system. For example, an add/edit person or place module may beincluded within the system, that may allow the system to overall track2640 particular persons, venues, audio visual suppliers, hosts,speakers, moderators, users, and/or attendees. For example, for eachperson or venue, or vendor entered into the system, contact informationmay be available. This contact information may include, for example,names, addresses, multiple telephone numbers, mobile telephone numbers,fax numbers, emergency contact information, or additional information,such as comments, that will allow for contacting of particular contactswithin the person, company, or venue or vendor data base. It will beapparent to those skilled in the art that multiple fields may beavailable for entry of particular information, such as fax numbers forhome, business, or other, or multiple name fields, which may allow, forexample, the selection of first, last and middle names, or the selectionof company names. Additionally, drop-down menus may be provided forselection of particular information within the contacts listing, such assuffixes to follow particular names, such as MD, Sr., Ph.D., Pharm D.,RN, APRN, PA, DO, or Esq., for example. Further, additional fields maybe added, or may be available, for entry of information specific toparticular projects, meetings, brands, or clients. For example, targetprofiles for particular meetings may include, for example, educationlevel information, ME numbers, DEA numbers, AOA numbers, districtnumbers, social security numbers, or other necessary or desiredinformation. Further, where available, electronically availableinformation may additionally be provided in the contacts listing such aselectronic, or scanned, business cards or other specialized or specialtyinformation, such as a speaker curriculum vitae or biography.

Variations of the fields set forth hereinabove, or additions madethereto, may be monitored 2660 by a permission level security interface.For example, a field sales representative may be entitled to access, orbe allowed to modify, only particular information related to aparticular meeting. Other information may not be added or edited by thatfield representative, and this accessibility may be controlled by asecurity interface, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.Further, all or a portion of the information passed from a remoteplanning system to a local interface may be secure information, such asby data encryption apparent to those skilled in the art.

In this exemplary operational embodiment, a user entering informationmay be allowed to enter information, or may be prompted to enterparticular information, such as wherein a meeting profile, personprofile, or place profile, has been created, and particular informationhas not been entered. For example, upon completion of a meeting request,the planning system may prompt a field sales representative to create atarget list for that meeting, wherein a target list has not yet beencreated. The field representative may then either enter a target list aspart of selection 2630, or select that a target list will be entered ata later date. This target list may then be entered, such as, forexample, by a download in the entirety from, for example, a MicrosoftExcel spreadsheet, or the information may be, at that date or a laterdate, hard coded manually into the system.

Further, particular information items may be provided to the userfilling out a given request, as the request is being filled out. Forexample, the system may provide 2650 specific instructions that areapplicable to particular events or event types. For example, themarketing department within a particular client may limit attendance to15 attendees per meeting, such as due to marketing budgetaryconstraints. In such an instance, wherein a meeting has been set upusing the add/edit meeting module, and it is entered that the marketingdepartment is to fund the meeting, a message box may appear for the userthat instructs “at marketing funded events, attendance is limited to 15per meeting, and attendees must have signed consulting agreements, maynot bring spouses, and will not be paid honorarium. Further, the venuebudget is limited to $2000 per meeting, and any excess must be enteredinto the ‘additional expense field.’”. The user may be given the optionto accept or reject these instructions. Thus, the planning system mayinclude a plurality of business rules, that may be applied to particularmeeting, projects, brands, or clients. These business rules may beentered by clients, field representatives, planning systemadministrators, or any authorized user.

Further, such as within the business rules, the planning system mayinclude a hierarchy, such as a hierarchy through which meeting requests,or expense requests must pass, as illustrated in the block diagram ofFIG. 40. In such an embodiment, a meeting request may be generated, andmay be passed for approval, such as automatically by e-mail, to a clientadministrator. Alternatively, expenses within the meeting request may bepassed to an accounting department within the client for approval. Insuch an exemplary embodiment, upon approval by the accountingdepartment, check requests may be automatically generated, such as byinterface of a check generation software to the planning system approvalmethodology, thereby generating checks without any human interactionother than approval of the expense. Alternatively, as will be apparentto those skilled in the art, a check request may be manually approved,and a check may be manually generated.

In an exemplary embodiment, business rules may be applied usingcomponents and templates, wherein components are the data that has been,or may be captured, and wherein the templates select the manner in whichthe components will be stored and/or displayed. FIG. 41 is a blockdiagram illustrating the accessing, from a user work station, via theinternet, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, of the planning systemdatabases. The web server that receives the user request, may break therequest down into component definitions, and may select a template inaccordance with the desired or received component, as illustrated.

FIG. 42 is a schematic illustration of an architecture 2902 to employthe planning system discussed hereinabove. The architecture 2902 mayinclude, for example, a rich client 2904, a thin client 2906, apresentation level 2908, a business logic level 2910, and a data level2912. The data level may include, for example, data bases, legacysystems, and external applications. The architecture may further employ,for example, a firewall.

This multitier architecture may be developed using, for example, aMicrosoft Windows DNA model. The presentation tier may include, forexample, user interfaces. The business logic level may include, forexample, the business rules discussed hereinabove. The presentationlevel of the architecture may use, for example, HTML programming forpresentation to the user. Further, tools and applications available onthe presentation level may use, for example, standard HTML or XML. Inthe data level, data may be resident, in part, in a database on, forexample, a Microsoft SQL server. Universal data access from, forexample, the business logic, may be granted through, for example, anADO. Using a distributed server environment, the planning system mayinclude a plurality of distributed servers. For example, a dataarchitecture, such as a database, may reside on one server, and middletier components, such as business logic, may reside on a second server.HTML pages, or other user interfaces, may reside on the second server ormay reside on a third server. Thereby, no single server experiencesoverload.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations may be made in the apparatus and process ofthe present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of theinvention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover themodification and variations of this invention provided they come withinthe scope of the appended claims and the equivalents thereof.

1.-57. (canceled)
 58. A planner apparatus, comprising: a projectmanagement module, wherein at least one information item associated withsaid event is generated; an event logistics module, wherein at leastrecruiting of individuals for attendance at said event, selection ofvenue and speakers for said event, and travel logistics for said event,in accordance with said at least one information item, are monitored; atleast one database, wherein the at least one information item, andwherein at least one of said recruiting, venue, speakers, and travellogistics are stored; a fulfillment request module, wherein fulfillmentof tasks associated with said at least one database is performed; and areporting module, wherein data associated with said event, in accordancewith said at least one information item and at least one of saidrecruiting, venue, speakers, and travel logistics, is provided to auser.
 59. The planner apparatus of claim 58, wherein said projectmanagement module comprises a representative list management, a speakerlist management, a task list management, and a security access control.60. The planner apparatus of claim 58, wherein said fulfillment modulecomprises one or more of the group consisting of a venue confirmationletter generator, a cover memo generator, a cancellation fax and noticeform generator, a custom invitation generator, a speaker confirmationletter generator, a generic invitation letter generator, a speaker thankyou letter generator, a reminder fax generator, and a request forreceipt generator.
 61. The planner apparatus of claim 58, wherein saidreporting module generates one or more of the group consisting ofmultiple day reports, invitation reports, status summary report, resultsreport, hyperlink report, cumulative attendance report, and financialreports.
 62. The planner apparatus of claim 58, further comprising afinancial module, wherein estimates of cost are generated.
 63. Theplanner apparatus of claim 58, further comprising a security accesscontrol module.
 64. A planning system comprising: at least one businessrule remote from at least one client; a meeting editor, wherein at leastone meeting may be generated for the at least one client by at least oneuser of the meeting editor in accordance with at least one of the atleast one business rule; and at least one tracker communicativelyconnected to the meeting editor, wherein the at least one tracker tracksat least two data items selected from the group consisting of inviteesto at least one of the at least one meetings, respondents to invitationsto the meeting, at least one speaker of the meeting, at least one hostof the meeting, finances of the meeting, and a venue of the meeting, andwherein the at least one tracker communicates the at least two dataitems with the meeting editor.
 65. The planning system of claim 64,wherein said at least one user comprises at least two users, and furthercomprising: a security access, wherein said security access limits afirst of the users to accessing a first of the at least one tracker, anda second of the users to accessing a second of the at least one tracker.66. The planning system of claim 64, wherein at least one of the atleast one user is at least one selected from the group consisting of atleast one system administrator, at least one meeting planner, at leastone meeting attendee, at least one speaker, and at least one servicesupplier.
 67. The planning system of claim 64, wherein said meetingeditor comprises: a meeting set-up module for setting up each meeting;and a meeting manager for managing each set-up meeting.
 68. The planningsystem of claim 67, wherein said meeting editor further comprises: afulfillment request form manager; and a reporter.
 69. The planningsystem of claim 68, wherein the fulfillment request form managergenerates a confirmation form for sending to an invitee upon anacceptance by the invitee of the invitation.
 70. The planning system ofclaim 69, wherein the confirmation form comprises at least one selectedfrom a letter, and email, a facsimile, and an automated telephone call.71. The planning system of claim 68, wherein the fulfillment requestform manager comprises a template, and wherein the elements of thetemplate are selected from said tracker.
 72. The planning system ofclaim 68, wherein the meeting manager comprises at least one listingsmanager.
 73. The planning system of claim 72, wherein the at least onemeeting manager comprises at least one selected from the groupconsisting of an attendance listing manager, an invitee listing manager,a speaker listing manager, task listing manager, and a security listingmanager.
 74. The planning system of claim 64, wherein said at least onebusiness rule comprises a distributed Internet application architecture.75. The planning system of claim 64, wherein said meeting editorcomprises a selector for selecting at least one of the invitees to atleast one of the at least one meetings, the respondents to invitationsto the meeting, the at least one speaker of the meeting, the at leastone host of the meeting, the finances of the meeting, and the venue ofthe meeting for tracking by said tracker.
 76. The planning system ofclaim 75, wherein said tracker further comprises a travel tracker thattracks travel for at least one of the at least on speaker and the atleast one host.
 77. The planning system of claim 64, wherein saidmeeting editor comprises at least one dynamic link library and at leastone html template.